Friday 18 October 2002

Pic of the day: Impassionately watching the torture of the passionate. Screenshot from Dark Age of Camelot.

No love, no loss

For most of the week, this song has lodged in my brain like a burr. I was glad at first to have something replace that creepy song with Roger Whittaker. But after finding myself humming it at home, at work, in the shop, on the street ... I wonder. It does seem almost less relevant than "Last farewell". It's in Norwegian, by Jahn Teigen, and the title is "Du skulle sagt ifra" ... You should have spoken up. It is about someone who promised to never leave, but did, leaving a hole in life.

"You should have spoken up, told me what it was. I did notice that you seemed very strange... You should have spoken up, perhaps there were answers. You never used to be the kind that just leave?"

Perhaps it's the melody. It is very energetic, and it fits my brain and body. I have to mention this here again: I seem to perceive melodies differently from most. Rhythm is much less significant to me, I mean the rapid rhythm like a heartbeat. The breath rhythm is more important, the rise and fall of energy over a longer stretch of the song, a line or more. Do you understand what I mean? When the music rises in frequency, or becomes louder, that's a rise of the wave; expanding harmonies too. Then it sinks back. Depending on the music, there may be series of such waves, either building up to a climax or just gently rolling through the song. When a song is building energy in the breath rhythm for a long time, at a speed that is compatible with my body, that can be a pretty powerful experience. Sometimes I kinda "lock up" in a kind of asexual ecstasy, hardly able to breathe or move, when listening intently to such melodies. It is entirely possible that I'm going to die from such music someday, but hopefully not. Well, hopefully not for a very long time at least. I'm not sure it would be the worst way to die, from music, but right now I like to live. Perhaps not as much as I used to, but still a lot.

Perhaps it's just the melody. Perhaps it is just a coincidence that it's another song about final goodbyes, about overwhelming loss. What would I know about that, anyway?

***

When you give a toddler something, say a new toy, he will have fun a little while and then start to lose interest. After a while, he would not even notice if you took away the toy behind his back. But if you remove it in front of him, say to give it to another toddler, then he reacts. Screams of bottomless despair, as if you ripped his very soul out and cast it plummeting into the nether depths of Hell. His world has ended, his life is over, crushed beyond repair, and he will accept no solace.

Nothing is permanent. Look around and you will see that. For some obscure reason, some adults expect their loved ones to always be there for them. They mingle their soul with someone outside themselves. And then when their loved one is taken away, either by death or "worse", to be given to someone else, they cry. Their world has ended, their life is over, crushed beyond repair ...

From what I see, the adults like the toddlers show rather little appreciation while they have their toy. Oh, at first, but it soon fades. They put their toy behind them and take it for granted. Well, excuse my lack of sympathy when you bawl your eyes out later.

"I remember that you said: 'I shall never leave you' ... and I believed it. Believed it could never happen." Well, duh. Must everyone, except me, learn this for themselves? And then forget it and learn it again? Humans are not reliable. If you invest any of your soul in them, it's as if you lend money to a stranger on the street. (Or an E-mail from Nigeria. Heh. Heh. I can't believe respectable, well-paid people bite on that one. Sometimes I wonder if I am the only intelligent life on Earth, and even then only barely.) Humans are like you: They want toys, not to be your toy. Live with it or die trying.

As they say about the stockmarket: "Don't invest more than you can afford to lose."

***

P.S.: After uploading, I realized that it may look like I mock people who love others instead of themselves. That's not what I mean! Far from it. We should all love one another. I have not made a secret of my own love for someone who doesn't love me. Admittedly, that's an angelic, pure, divine love ... eh, perhaps not quite. ^_^* But almost certainly more pure than YOU believe! Anyway, parents should love their children, spouses should love each other, we should all cherish and protect the weak etc. But what I meant to mock was people who expect others to love THEM. People die; love dies. You can't count on others to be there for you, and if you're more than 12 years you ought to know that by now.